improvised gun play

[BohoMama]

Here's another post on my 3 1/2 y.o. son's behalf.

For background: We don't have any toy guns. We don't have a TV. He doesn't watch much TV with other people. We do watch movies sometimes, almost always of the "family" variety, and there is an *occasional* gun scene in these. For example, "The Sound of Music" has the Nazi character pull a gun on Capt. Von Trapp in one of the final scenes. Andrej's preschool is Waldorf and I am absolutely sure that there are no gun toys and that this behavior is not at all encouraged there. I'd say that all in all Andrej's exposure to guns is much less than that of other kids.

Nonetheless, he seems terribly attracted to guns. He picks up anything longer than it is wide (a stick, a toy screwdriver, a recorder) and pretends it is a gun and aims and "shoots" at people.) When we go somewhere and there are toys, he immediately finds the gun if there is one, and if there isn't he improvises one from something else.

I've talked about this with a friend who has a same-aged son (and who lets her child play with a water gun and toy swords) and we both think that they are attracted to weapons because it seems like (in movies and in pretend play) that whoever has the weapon has power and is in control of the situation. Being little, our sons must often feel that they are not in contol, maybe especially among their preschool peers (who are up to age 6). I know that he understands that guns are killing machines and he doens't think killing is anything good, but he keeps acting out scenes of shooting and even killing with his improvised guns. :(

What do you guys think? What do you do about this?

[TinkerBelle]

Quite honestly, it sounds like a normal boy thing to me. My boys, even without toy guns, would make a gun out of other toys, or even just use their fingers. I just did not make a big deal of it and eventually the allure faded. They will still, on rare occasion, play like that, but not as much as when they were your child's age. (mine are 8 and 7)

[margitmama]

I agree, totally normal, my sons do the same thing.
I sometimes think of it as an archetypal desire to categorize the world into two teams, good and evil. My sons (5 and 2) love getting the "bad guys"... I don't love it, but I don't stop it either. Oddly, when my sons (and their friends when they come over) play this game, it is a cooperative game; they are all on the same team, with the same goal, which is a plus.

regards,
Margit:)

[Peppermint]

Have you read Playful Parenting? I learned a LOT from Cohen's take on gun play, I highly recommend the book!

Now, my own kids had zero interest of/ knowledge of guns, so much so that when my ds first saw a toy gun, he picked it up and put the barrell up to his eye, thinking it was a kaliedoscope (sp?) or something, :lol . When I started babysitting a boy, who had not been "sheltered" from guns as my kids had been, they became an issue for us and it drove me CRAZY. I posted on another board of trusted GD mamas about it, and heard from super great mamas about how their boys too, were obsessed with guns, one wise mama told me that she started with taking away anything he tried to play gun with until he one day played "gun" with a PBJ sandwich, that was when she gave up.:lol Another pointed out that you can't take away their fingers, so- you've gotta love with it.

I decided to try to "let it go" but was still so bothered by it, it wasn't until reading Playful Parenting that I "got it", I would love to paraphrase what he says about it for you, but I am afraid I would not do it justice.

HTH!

PS- since I "let go" of my worry over it, my ds has totally lost interest (of course, I am no longer babysitting that boy, so ds may go back to it when he goes to school).

[sunnysideup]

I highly recommend the book Playful Parenting by L. Cohen. The author explains why some kids need to play games like this, how kids learn and explore feelings through play, and how you can learn to love the games you hate.

[BohoMama]

I've seen older kids terrorizing younger ones in a playground with improvised guns made of sticks or bottles. Parents were sitting around the sidelines and did nothing except call their own child over when they were threatened and aim dirty looks at the perpetrators. On other playgrounds I've seen 12 year olds (?) shooting BBs around and aiming their guns at little kids. Not wanting to be shot, I left. I, too, did nothing to stop these boys. Cowardice, yes. I'm also smaller than a healthy 12-year old boy and was pregnant at the time. Calling the police is not an option, they don't usually respond to "real" crimes, nevermind childish games.

I'm encouraged by those of you who say that gun play is "playful" and that this stage will pass, but I also desperately want to avoid my son either becoming one of these bullies or one of their victims.

[brendon]

I try and keep the gun play in perspective, even though I am totally against them, and teach the girls gun safety. I also prefer they shoot at things rather than people or animals. It is a sticky subject....especially since my dh and I enjoy medieval/renn. activities. we have knights with swords that the girls play with. I guess i am more concerned with them seeing a real gun and being curious and picking it up.

[bellona]

You know, I used to think that if I kept my boys from guns and offered all my children cars and dolls and treated them as equally as possible they wouldn't be steriotypical boys and girls. Boy, was I wrong!

DD takes cars and lines them up by size saying "this is the mommy, this is the daddy and this is the baby" and proceeds to play house with them. DS uses the dolls as hand grenades, smoke bombs, guns or monster trucks.

I agree, try not to let it get to you and it will pass much, much faster. I also agree with the comment that they have a need to categorize the world into good and evil.

Although I let my ds play with guns, I do not participate. I tell him I'm a pacifist except when it is necessary to defend one's self :)

[Ruthla]

I think your child is just being a child. I personally don't want my children playing with toy guns, but I have no problem with a "gun" made from sticks, screwdrivers, leggos, or fingers- those kinds of "guns" can quickly and easily become something else as soon as the child is finished playing "gun." A plastic gun ENCOURAGES violent play IMO.

I would gently encourage the child to "shoot" at trees, or targets, or something other than people.

[UmmBnB]

I think your child is just being a child. I personally don't want my children playing with toy guns, but I have no problem with a "gun" made from sticks, screwdrivers, leggos, or fingers- those kinds of "guns" can quickly and easily become something else as soon as the child is finished playing "gun." A plastic gun ENCOURAGES violent play IMO.

I would gently encourage the child to "shoot" at trees, or targets, or something other than people.

ita - in addition, I think that having toy guns around blurs the lines between recognition between the toys and the real thing.

[Marsupialmom]

I've seen older kids terrorizing younger ones in a playground with improvised guns made of sticks or bottles. Parents were sitting around the sidelines and did nothing except call their own child over when they were threatened and aim dirty looks at the perpetrators. On other playgrounds I've seen 12 year olds (?) shooting BBs around and aiming their guns at little kids. Not wanting to be shot, I left. I, too, did nothing to stop these boys. Cowardice, yes. I'm also smaller than a healthy 12-year old boy and was pregnant at the time. Calling the police is not an option, they don't usually respond to "real" crimes, nevermind childish games.

I'm encouraged by those of you who say that gun play is "playful" and that this stage will pass, but I also desperately want to avoid my son either becoming one of these bullies or one of their victims.

I think there is a different situations.......3 year olds are not 12 year old shooing BB's. Nobody is saying we would ever give our kids those types of toys and say it is normal. Also you should have called, what you described is a crime.

[loon13]

Well, here's an interesting article on the subject:

http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2000/06/violent_media.html

At its most fundamental level, what we call "creative violence" -- head-bonking cartoons, bloody videogames, playground karate, toy guns -- gives children a tool to master their rage. Children will feel rage. Even the sweetest and most civilized of them, even those whose parents read the better class of literary magazines, will feel rage. The world is uncontrollable and incomprehensible; mastering it is a terrifying, enraging task.

[bellona]

I never wanted toy guns in my house, but my ds was so obsessed with gun play I caved. I bought him two cap gun pistols with a double holster belt for Christmas and he played with them all day and slept with them that night. He played with them alot that whole week, but since then I haven't seen them at all and he's stopped making everything he comes across a weapon. Not that he doesn't ever play like that...its just not as much as before by far.

[angela&avery]

Well, we dont advocate guns in this house at all. When mentioned, I have told my 4 year old that I dotn like guns bc they hurt people. Lucky for me, he is more naturally drawn towards cars and trucks than guns:D ..so far....

He will point his finger and make "psshh" noises to his sister adn to friends at school ( i observed) and I figure this is something he picked up there as its not done often at home. I have told him that I dont like it and have left it at that, the bigger deal I make, the more he does it....

I try to avoid any tv with guns, but with his obsession with cars, we have let him watch Back to the Future and there is a gun shot scene in that movie. I had forgotten about it until we watched it with him:o . This has not brought on an obession, though.... nothing has changed in his attitude since letting him watch that movie....

However, I have avoided buying and letting him watch anything else with guns in it....

We do not have toy guns and I have thrown out gun gifts he has gotten. I dont want those lines blurred at all. He had a laser gun that was lilo and stitch, I let him play with it but as soon as he lost interest i threw it out :mischief . He DOES actually play with water guns, at my parents house, and I let that go:shrug , but I insist that we refer to them as water pistols, and lucky for me, he does not play violently with them, or even very often with them.....(thank goodness).

[BohoMama]

Thanks for the article link. That was interesting, and goes to show that this issue goes way deeper than just trying to put limits on a certain category of toy. 500 years ago were "progressive" mamas trying to limit swordplay? 500,000 years ago did they worry about sharp rocks?

I guess familarizing a child with myths and stories in which violence serves some ultimately pro-social purpose could eventually bear fruit. Scaled-down Shakespeare, Iliad, Greek myths, fairy tales, etc. At 3 1/2, the subtler points will obviously be lost but repetition, I suppose, is the key and with advancing age comes advancing wisdom.

The "good vs. evil" mindset is something I think we should all be working to overcome. The West vs. Islam, Fundamentalists vs. Progressives, Feminists vs. Mamas, none of it leads to constructive resolutions of our differences. I suppose it is a stage children need to work through, i.e. recognizing one's opponents, but the urge to destroy them.....well, bothers me.

Another thing that plays into this is that guns are also tools that some people use to get food. I think that my son is working out that there are different rules & expectations for different people. Some people eat meat, but we don't. Those people aren't "bad," but we don't want to do what they do. Most of our neighbors (we live in a village) hunt game. Even if Andrej doesn't observe them with their guns, he knows about their activities and sometimes sees what they bring home. This doesn't relate directly to his play-acting of shooting people, but it does contribute to the allure of guns. Real people that he likes and admires use them. Maybe it would be useful to get some of them to talk with him about gun safety (never shooting at people, always handling the gun very carefully, etc.)

Thanks for sharing everything, mamas. :grouphug

[Proudly AP]

I've seen older kids terrorizing younger ones in a playground with improvised guns made of sticks or bottles.

I'm encouraged by those of you who say that gun play is "playful" and that this stage will pass, but I also desperately want to avoid my son either becoming one of these bullies or one of their victims.

Playful Parenting talks about the differences between a child trying to figure out and try on different roles and reactions, and those who *truly* seem to get pleasure from the harming (or pretended harming) of others.

Really, this book is great, and helps me to put things into perspective, as well.

[TripMom]

DS #1 does this too. Had no exposure to guns ---- until, we decided to dress his sibs up like 2 yodas and 1 princess leia for Halloween. DS #1 had questions about the costumes - so DH and I thought to show him "Star Wars". My memory of star wars was that is was pretty campy, etc - my only fear was that Darth Vader would scare him? So DH said he'd turn it off if DV was scarey to DS. Anyway, don't flame me - DUMB MISTAKE. It never occured to me that those laser things they "shoot" with would spur a major shooting phase for DS? I mean - all I remembered from SW was light sabers? Not guns!

Whatever. Now I am constantly trying to police him on this issue around the house . . . and especially when playing with friends or on the playground as this issue is a big big no no in my 'hood. But its a delicate balance - the more I make it "taboo" . . . the more he wants to do it!

[bellona]

Oh, tripmom!

No flames coming from this direction. We didn't do Star Wars, but dh let them see the Mask, not remembering anything bad in it. Most parents I know have done something along these lines at some point with their kids. :o

[winonamom2be]

Feminists vs. Mamas????

Sorry, I know this is WAY off topic, but when I saw this up there in BohoMama's post, I just did a double take. I was unaware that Feminist and Mama were mutually exclusive. Can someone please explain, because I have been considering myself both.

Thanks...:scratch

[BohoMama]

Yep, this is off topic but there are folks out there (I've met quite a few) who seem to think that if you get married, take your husband's name and make mothering your primary occupation that you are selling out. (Your "real" calling is to be a tenured professor or dean, or else a "director," "manager," or some alphabet person like CEO, CFO, CIO and to have your own personal secretary whom you can beneveloently excuse from a few hours' work when her kids get sick.) If you have been so lucky as to not yet encounter any of these benighted souls, try your local university's graduate school of arts and sciences. I also seem to run into these people on airplanes and in cafes, but that's probably just bum luck. On the other hand, there are those full-time mamas who give grief to mamas on career tracks, without knowing or caring why those women have chosen that path. I've personally met fewer women in this category, but friends sometimes run into them or get their hostile vibes from a distance (like over the neighbors' fence or at the kids' bus stop.)

The feminist vs. mama divide is of course artificial, but like the others, it exists in some people's minds and makes mischief in the world.

[LeosMama]

My 25 mo old ds has had no exposure to seeing guns used (he sees real guns at my father's house, but hasn't seen them held or used in any way) but he figured out how to attach his plastic wrench to the plastic screwdriver to make a gun shape. He points this at people, animals, objects and pretends to do something. I don't know what he's pretending. My cultural assumptions about guns mean nothing to him. I think that even in cultures w/o guns, a child would do this. He is interacting with his environment through this toy. I don't know how he's interacting with it, as it's mostly in his imagination and he's not very talkative about his imagination yet.

Try not to let your cultural assumptions color his play artificially.

That being said, when my brother and I were little, we were raised around guns, both toy and real. It was a VERY STRICT rule in our house that no toy or imaginary gun, no gun made from PBJ sandwiches or our own fingers were to EVER be pointed at anything alive. EVER. Even during 'Cops & Robbers' games or 'War' games. Our action figures could point guns at each other, but no action figure could point at a real living creature. This was so serious that to this day whenever a child makes a gun of his fingers and points it at me I want to snap a gasquet and yell at him/her.

YOU DO NOT POINT FAKE GUNS AT LIVING CREATURES!! EVER!!

This is so ingrained in my personality because we had real guns in the house with real bullets. By the time my brother and I were 10, we knew how to fire and handle real guns. My father had us very well prepared to act responsibly with them b/c of the ingrained behavior about toy guns. We both shepherded our friends when they were at our houses and never trusted any friend who would touch a gun that was laying out. Some people may say it was irresponsible to have guns around us at all, but if you had known us as children, you would know we would sooner beat each other bloody with sticks and rocks or even sooner steal a car! than even point our fake guns at each other, and certainly NEVER a real gun.

What happens when your child is 8 and goes to a friend's house and they have a gun out? You can't control your child's experiences forever. They need to know how to handle themselves and react logically and safely in such a situation.

Ignoring the issue and sheltering us from guns would not have protected us and would not have taught us anything.

And for the us vs. them violence idea...we were raised with the idea that guns are for self-defense and recreation (hunting as appropriate, target shooting, collecting). When defending oneself, it is us vs. them in a very intimate and real sense. This is not wrong, it is real. Reality isn't wrong or right, good or evil. I choose my life over the life of this person threatening me/my family. I wouldn't make a very good pacifist.

My point when I started this post was just to say that 'gun' play is normal, whether the culture has guns in it or not. But you do need to give him guidelines about what is acceptable conduct during gun play. No pointing at living creatures is the most important rule.

[Dragonfly]

I'm encouraged by those of you who say that gun play is "playful" and that this stage will pass, but I also desperately want to avoid my son either becoming one of these bullies or one of their victims.

IMO, that behavior has nothing to do with gun play. It has everything to do with the child's perspective on the world. The best way to make sure your child doesn't become a bully is to avoid robbing him of his power, to nurture him, and to encourage his nurturing tendencies.

I have a 5-year-old who has been involved in much more imaginary gun play over the last 2 years than I'm comfortable with. At the same time, he is the most sensitive, nurturing little fellow you could hope to meet. It took me a while to make friends with the idea that his play was about developing perspective, not about violence.

[joandsarah77]

Take a look at this then http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/mohler/
It's people like that want exactly that, a fued between feminist verses mother. or maybe she would like to see children brought up in farms or only by the 'lower class' :irked:

lol coming back to edit because now theres a sport story up.
There is a calender just to the left hit the back arrow to go to Feb and click on the 24th. The woman he's quoting is a shocker.

[bellona]

I had a friend that belonged to some feminist group thing (that makes it so clear, doesn't it?:lol ) in college a couple of years ago and they were talking about what they wanted to be 'when they grew up'. My friend is very much NOT the steriotypical housewife from the 50's, very much in the feminist category, and yet she's always wanted to get married and have a couple of kids. She wasn't told outright that she had to stop coming to the group, but they made it pretty clear that it wasn't a place for future wives and moms.

I'm just wondering...who do they think is going to birth the future feminists??